


Controlled Burn

by NeverwinterThistle



Category: Far Cry 4
Genre: F/F, Full Game Spoilers, Post-Game, Post-Sabal Victory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-03-12 07:52:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3349418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/pseuds/NeverwinterThistle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She lives. Like an ageing tigress, weathered sinew held together by scar tissue and spite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Controlled Burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spacehussy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehussy/gifts).



> Happy Femslash February/Valentine's Day! This is for Hussy (my goodness, what a surprise!) and also for me. The floodgates are open now, let the Far Cry 4 f/f come pouring in!

It's a day like any other. Chill air, chill wind, and the sun has the nerve to shine like it has something to celebrate. A joyful day, for work or festivities. Maybe the last Kyrat will ever see.

Amita sits on her rock, hands in her lap, and doesn't cry.

She's not even angry. She _was_ , while she packed her single rucksack to bursting and ran past the bodies of her last few supporters. Dead on the ground; like trash in a ditch, forgotten. Someone will burn them for her, she hopes. Say the rites, wish them well. Sabal wouldn't deny them that. She hopes.

Not much hope left in Kyrat these days.

An engine nearby, getting closer by the second. _No scouts in this area,_ Amita thinks, calling up the roster in her mind's eye, as it was when she last saw it. _No convoys, no deliveries. Ajay must have talked. I suppose it was only to be expected._ She draws her gun, laying it gently on the rock at her side. If they've come for her then they won't have her easily. Won't have her at all, if she gets a say in the matter. It would be very poor planning indeed not to make sure she always saves a bullet for herself.

The engine stops; time passes. Amita sits still, braced for combat, but the wind brings no whispers of soldiers on the move, and if Sabal managed to train them to be _quiet_ on the damn battlefield, she'll be very surprised. She never managed it. Not soldiers, then.

She strains her ears and catches footsteps on the approach, an uneven gait too staggering for subtlety.

 _Ajay?_ she thinks, startled. _Did he turn on you so soon? I was expecting it to be a few more months before you saw Sabal's true colours._

_Don't come crying to me for sympathy. You made your bed. Now go lie in it, with the demon you mistook for a friend._

"I'm armed," she calls and the footsteps stop. The gun stays within reach at her side; she doesn't touch it. Not yet. "Give me a reason, and I'll blow your head open like an overripe melon. Don't test me on this. I'm _very_ short on patience just now."

Just out of sight below the crest of the hill, someone laughs. It's sure as hell not Ajay.

"So what's new?" a woman's voice asks. And Kyra, she's familiar.

"You're dead," Amita says blankly, as Yuma climbs into view. "Ajay said he stabbed you- for _fuck's_ sake, can the boy do nothing right? Can't see through Sabal's mask; can't kill you, can't kill me, probably wasn't able to kill Pagan. What, did he find a way to spare Noore as well? Will he free De Pleur in the night, when the man's pathetic pleading keeps him awake?"

"Noore's dead," Yuma says. "Paul's scheduled to be torn apart by elephants next week, and it's about time too. But you're right about Pagan; the kid let him go unharmed."

"I see he didn't offer _you_ the same courtesy." Amita shoves her gun back into its holster and shuffles over to make room on the rock. Watches Yuma limp over to join her. And limp she does; she's hunched, back bent like an elder's, bowed by decades of hoisting sugarcane. As if Yuma ever did a day of manual labour in her life.

But she's limping, the Demon of Durgesh prison. Whatever wounds her coat is covering might not have killed her, but they're more than enough to leave her weakened. Vulnerable.

Amita stands and helps her slide the assault rifle off her shoulder, checking the safety instinctively before giving it back. Yuma wields it as crutch. Lets it take her weight as she sinks down onto the rock. No point to offering her assistance; she'd only be offended. As Amita herself would be, in the other woman's place.

She sits, once Yuma is settled. "So he tried to kill you?" she asks. Moderates her tone into neutrality; she doesn't care about the answer. She doesn't.

"Oh, he tried alright. He's better than I expected. Got me good near the end, but I deserved it; I let the game go on too long."

"That was stupid of you."

"Reckless, maybe. The boy was high as a kite. He carved me up, sure, and maybe he thinks he killed me- but I don't die easily. I refuse to." Yuma's voice turns cold, cutting, and Amita bites back the wry comment on her tongue. "I gave this country more than twenty five years of my life. Longer than you've been breathing. Isn't that funny? I gave my youth, my dreams, my _future_ to this place, and all it's ever done is try to suck more out of me. Well, fuck it. Pagan's gone and I'm not giving Kyrat any more of my blood."

She leans on the barrel of her rifle, lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl that vanishes as soon as it appears. The tigress is wounded. And either it's bad enough that pain meds aren't enough to numb her completely, or she was too damn stubborn to take them in the first place.

Maybe she doesn't have any. _Wouldn't that make a change,_ Amita thinks. _When I was always the one scrambling for resources, scraps, any small piece of trash Pagan let slip through his greedy fingers; just in case it could buy my people another dose or two of morphine, vaccines for the children, fucking anything. Now who's the one with nothing?_

Both of them. She keeps forgetting she's homeless now. Nothing but the clothes on her back and the rucksack she stuffed with anything that looked useful before running for cover like a scared little rabbit.

"Look at us," Amita says, gesturing. "We're _done_. We waited too long. You were so... So _sure_ you had Pagan figured out, that you could play the man like a puppet. What was it you said to me? That the day he beat you would be the day the world turned inside out and ran with rivers of blood? Hah!" Yuma's sneer is weak at best; whatever defences she might try to mount stay sub-vocal, locked inside the skewed maze of her mind. She grips her gun, grimaces, and Amita lets her laughter bubble over and spill out.

"And me," she gasps. Hunches over, clutches at her aching ribs. "Me! I had half the Golden Path fighting for me, for my vision, for the lives I was going to give them. I had...so many plans. So many _fucking_ plans, and they all went up in smoke one by one before I realised what was happening! I lost my _country_ ," she has to pause, take in great gulps of air before her lungs burst for lack of sustenance. She laughs. She wants to weep; wants to vomit up her insides until there's nothing left of Amita, and the grass will grow a little greener when her body's done feeding it.

"Are you done?" Yuma asks, and Amita spits into the ground at her feet.

"Oh no," she says. "At least stay around to hear the punch line. I _lost_ my _country_ to a boy my age with a bleeding heart and a weakness for green-eyed _snakes_. He was Sabal's from the start. _Fuck_." Her fist forms a hammer; she brings it down hard on her thigh and swears again. "Fuck."

Yuma shrugs. "Not your fault," she says flatly. "He came from bad stock; nothing you could do about it."

"Well," Amita says, with mirth on her lips and bile in her throat. "I guess Sabal was always happiest on his knees. For Ajay's sake, I hope he made it worthwhile."

At her side, Yuma tips her head back and cackles. A coarse sound; an honest sound. If not for the white-knuckled grip on the gun barrel, the way her body lists like a sapling in the breeze, Amita would lean her head on the woman's shoulder. Not from weakness. Never that. But in times of intolerable struggle, she's found Yuma's presence to be a blessing. Caustic though she is; dangerous though she is. And _because_ she is dangerous, because she walks with her claws unsheathed and her teeth bared and needlepoint-sharp, Amita trusts her. Yuma doesn't need to stab her in the back. Never has.

She's always been more of a 'full frontal assault' kind of woman. This too is something Amita appreciates. In more ways than one.

"So how are we doing this?" she asks. "Did you just come to kiss me goodbye, or will you do me the mercy of a clean death before you go? I'd be ever so grateful."

"Giving up so easy?" Yuma asks; Amita snorts, kicking at the loose earth under her boots.

"There's little left for me here. I'm dead, as far as Sabal knows. The people I trusted are gone; for good, if he had anything to do with it. For all his bluster about the value of _lives_ , Sabal's always been a practical man. I'd bet he had them shot within a day of taking the palace."

"Waste of bullets," Yuma says. "He cut their throats, it was all very messy. I'm told the young _Tarun Matara_ was almost as upset about it as Ajay Ghale."

"Good," Amita says with satisfaction. "He made his choice; let's see him live with the consequences."

"You're a vicious, unsentimental bitch," Yuma tells her, knocking her knee against Amita's.

"You like it."

"I love it. It's why I'm getting you out of this worthless country. I'm going, you're coming too; twenty-four hours from now I'll be eating you out in a five star Hong Kong hotel. Sound like a plan?"

"Sounds to me like you need to cut back on your own drugs," Amita says, turning her head away. Dreams, again. She's sick of the things. Of her own, of Yuma's; how many dreams have they shared, over the time of their...acquaintance? Fool that she is, she actually believed some of them. They were going to make Kyrat _great_. Modernise, develop, turn this backwards country into something people could be proud of. "Enough of your dreams," she says. "Give me an honest bullet, or leave me alone."

"My driver's waiting just down the hill." Yuma nods in the direction she came. "There's a plane at the airport; takeoff's in an hour, don't want to be late. We'll change flights in India, then straight to Hong Kong. I've got you a passport. We won't have any problems."

Amita stares at her, at the violent pink hair (unnatural, exotic; she's lost count of the number of times she dragged her hands through it, tangled strands in her fingers and tugged). The lines around her eyes and the smirk that twists her lips.

"You're serious," she says. "You actually mean this. Here I thought you'd stopped by to play one last game before leaving me to rot. But you... You _are_ serious."

She's ashamed of the way her voice quivers. It gives Yuma an opening to look at her, smug smile in place. Dark eyes as seductive as she can make them, through the pain she can't quite mask. It's effective enough. And Amita is unwillingly susceptible to her charms, even after everything.

"I'm always serious. So tell me, sweetheart," Yuma purrs. "What's your poison? You like drugs, right? We can do that. I've got friends who can hook us up with everything we need to start our business. You want a change of career? Smuggling, gambling, brothels, you take your pick. Lot of people owe me favours; they'll get us anything we need. How about piracy, you like the sound of that?"

"I've never seen a body of water bigger than a lake."

"You'll love it," Yuma says. "It makes you feel small, like nothing you do matters. Like there are more powerful things in the universe than men, and none of your problems are even a speck in the face of eternity. Makes you feel insignificant; like the mountains here, but deeper."

"Oh, sure," Amita snarls. "What I really want is to feel insignificant. That's all I've been looking for my whole life. While I'm at it, how about I find a domineering husband to beat some modesty into me? Rape me nightly and keep me locked up at home to do the cooking? You think that would suit me?"

Yuma rolls her shoulders; winces, stretches gingerly. "Watch it. Your issues are showing."

"I'll show _you_ issues-"

"Touchy. But you never have been one for gratitude. Just listen, would you? I'm offering you _a way out_. You don't have to marry anyone, or take any more orders; you don't even have to stick with me, if you don't want that. I'll get you to wherever makes you happy, set you up, and then I'll go do my own thing. Whatever. It doesn't matter."

"Bullshit," Amita says. "What are you going to do without me to keep you organised? Who's going to make sure the product gets shipped on time, that it's undiluted, that our people aren't fleecing us for money on the side? Who's going to run the show while you wander off looking for some local deity to grant you immortality?"

"I managed twenty five years without you. I can do it again."

"Bull _shit_ ," Amita repeats. She wants to yank the rifle from Yuma's clutching fingers and beat her to death with it. She wants to scream until the mountains bow their mighty heads to the ground and offer her the apology she deserves. She wants to cry for the first time in years. But that, she doesn't permit herself. "You need me."

"Sure I do."

"You _do_ , or why are you even here? You say I'm unsentimental, but _you_ make glaciers look warm-hearted."

"Think of it like smuggling," Yuma says. Catches Amita's look of frustrated incomprehension and reaches over to pat her thigh with black-gloved fingers. "What, you thought I was going to leave Kyrat empty handed? That's not me. If I'm going, then I'm making damn sure to strip the country of its greatest treasures and take them with me. And I'm almost done. Only one left. She'll be a bitch to bring with me, but she's worth her weight in diamonds, so."

 _Oh,_ Amita thinks. And then, _I'm not falling for your flattery, I'm better than that. You don't get to win that easily_. But she's always been good at scenting out weakness, and the inside of her head stinks of the stuff. She thinks, without meaning to, _Wonder what Hong Kong looks like. Will there be mountains?_

"You're asking me to leave my country," Amita says at last. Intertwines her fingers in her lap; stares down at the lattice pattern they form. "Kyrat, it's...everything. It was always everything. All I've lived for. I never wanted to rule it; this wasn't about power. I only did what I wished someone had done for me when I was a child. I wanted to learn, and they told me to marry. I wanted to fight, and they told me I could sew uniforms or cook for soldiers, or drive vehicles. I wanted to say, " _I am a Kyrati_ " and not be told, " _No, you are a woman_ ," by people who never gave _half_ as much as I did for Kyrat."

"Their loss," Yuma says, as if it was that simple. And for her it might be. The Demon of Durgesh is obsessive, possessive, predatory. Predictably. But she knows a lost cause when she sees it; she's said so, repeatedly, right up until the _lost cause_ cut her loose and threw her into the snake pit.

And she lives. Yuma, her claws barely blunted by the trauma of a loss that should have torn her apart. She lives. Like an ageing tigress, weathered sinew held together by scar tissue and spite.

"Will I even like Hong Kong?" Amita hears herself ask.

"Doubt it," Yuma says, and she's probably telling the truth. She usually does, when the truth is unpleasant. "You might even hate it at first. No Himalayas. No civil war, or poppy fields, or Kyra shrines. Lots of opportunity though, if you have contacts. And more respect than you'll ever get here; you won't even have to kill too many people to get it." She shrugs. "If you hate it too much we can leave. I've got friends in the Pacific too. Pirates. Drugs, a nice little slave trade on a couple of islands nobody gives a shit about. Change of scenery. And you'd look cute in a bikini."

"I would _not_."

"Fine," Yuma says pleasantly. "Wear whatever. I'm still going to take your clothes off and cover you in diamonds."

"You're as mad as Pagan."

"Maybe. But unlike Pagan, I have _taste_."

"For fuck's sake."

But the damage is done. Yuma knows how to push her buttons, get her attention; words like _opportunity_ and _respect_ and, yes, _diamonds_. She didn't fight this fucking war to see her people end up poor. If they'd chosen her, she'd have dragged prosperity into Kyrat by the scruff of its neck, divided it up and shared it out and made certain everyone got a piece to take home. No more dressing in rags, no more tattered hand-me-downs. A bit of luxury didn't seem like too great a prize to ask. She certainly sacrificed enough for it.

 _If I stay here,_ Amita thinks, _then I do so as a rat. I hide and I creep and I scavenge, until inevitably Sabal finds me one day. And then I die. He wins. Fuck that._

"Better get moving then," she says, and stands abruptly. "Seeing as I'm going to have to carry you down to our driver."

"I knew you'd see it my way."

"Or I could just leave you to drag your sorry carcass down alone."

But she doesn't. Slips a careful arm around Yuma's waist (and the Demon of Durgesh sucks in a pained breath, but doesn't snarl at her. Doesn't bite. Lets herself be helped to her feet). Yuma's grip on her rifle is white-knuckled, trembling; she leans on it anyway. Better than letting Amita take her full weight, and thus know the full extent of her injuries.

She's stubborn like that. It's why they get along so well.

"So I'm saving your life here," Yuma says, as Amita staggers slightly and tries to match her pace. "Do I get a kiss?"

"Diamonds first," Amita tells her. "And then maybe I'll consider it." She regrets speaking a second later; Yuma's laughter racks her body. Her knees seem ready to give out.

"Attitude like that, you'll go far in life. Take it from someone who knows."

Amita stops. Readjusts her grip on Yuma's waist, secures the other woman's arm where it wraps around the back of her neck. And kisses her. Not as long as either of them would like, and not as thorough as she usually would; she thinks she tastes blood in Yuma's mouth, a copper tang on her tongue that both frightens and exhilarates her. Bloodshed between them only ever ends in one way, these days. They stopped trying to kill each other a long time ago.

It's not the end she imagined for herself. Fleeing her country with a crippled...ally, maybe, or something thereabouts. Turning her back on everything that's kept her fighting all these years. Leaving Bhadra to her fate. Amita doesn't have time for lying to herself; this isn't the victory she wanted.

But. She lives. She _will_ survive this.

And that in itself is a victory.


End file.
